


Baatir

by CT_1205



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Baby Clones (Star Wars), Clone Trooper Cadets (Star Wars), Clone Trooper Culture (Star Wars), Domestic Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, No Beta We Die Like Clones, midnight snacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:55:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28685967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CT_1205/pseuds/CT_1205
Summary: The older brothers were nice to have around. The trainers weren’t likely to comfort the cadets or help them around the compound or tuck them back into bed at night, not to mention how the Kaminoans would react to such infractions. But sometimes, Tup was glad for the independence he had found at six and a half.
Relationships: Dogma & CT-5385 | Tup
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	Baatir

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZoinksSc00b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoinksSc00b/gifts).



> Hello! Thank you so much for choosing my little story. This was written as a holiday gift for ZoinksSc00b. They're absolutely amazing and you should go check out their stuff! 
> 
> If you enjoy this, kudos and comments are extremely appreciated.

The cadets on Kamino lived on a strict schedule. Of course, each age group lived on a slightly different schedule and it changed year by year as they grew. The youngest of the clones in the crèche were up early in the morning screaming their heads off until their cadet caretakers lifted them from their cribs for a bottle and a change. They spent most of their days being as coddled as they were allowed to be by their older brothers that cycled in and out of that wing of the compound as their shifts came and went. By the time they were old enough to walk confidently on their legs without falling to their padded bottoms, the little cadets were allowed to sleep until just past 1000 hours if they didn’t wake before then. Older brothers would swoop in to wake each batch in their little rooms with the beds that sat low to the ground. Their faces were washed and teeth were brushed and they would be ushered off to their first lessons of the day, the strange ones with the sticky pads on their temples connected to the wires they weren’t allowed to touch.

Things were different by the time they were old enough to to climb into the pod bunks on the walls. Most batches were moved into the barracks by the age of four. The lights flicked on every morning at 0600 sharp whether they were ready to wake up or not. Their bunks were slid out from the walls and they would stumble into their fatigues so they could hurry off for breakfast. At the end of the day they would drag themselves into the bunk room from drills and stand tiredly under what little warm water they were allowed. Older troopers would come in from down the hall to make sure they had all made it into their bunks for the night. More often than not, at least one cadet had to be coaxed up the ladder to the pod at the very top, followed closely by a brother that kept a large hand on his back to remind him he would never be allowed to fall. By the time they were five, they had long since grown used to the strict routine. No one complained about where their bunk was or how short their shower was. They tucked themselves into bed with only the air filtration system to keep them company, and waited for the lights to come back on in the morning. At the age of six that buzz was replaced by the sound of live fire from training echoing in their heads. Some nights, a crying cadet would be startled by their pod opening up for an older brother to climb in next to him. Eventually, all the noise faded out around them, and they slept soundly with the occasional batchmate for company.

The older brothers were nice to have around. The trainers weren’t likely to comfort the cadets or help them around the compound or tuck them back into bed at night, not to mention how the Kaminoans would react to such infractions. But sometimes, Tup was glad for the independence he had found at six and a half.

He tried to follow the rules as well as he could. He finished his training every day, took a quick shower every day, and rolled himself into his bunk beside Dogma’s every day before the lights ever clicked off. It was after he was settled down in the rough sheets that lined his bunk staring at the durasteel above him when things started to go down hill.

Tup wasn’t particularly afraid of the dark. He had never been allowed to be afraid of anything really. It was more a feeling of discontent. He would toss and turn back and forth, his gangly limbs knocking into the sides of his bunk, until Dogma banged on the wall that connected them to get him to knock it off. Then, Tup would sprawl across his stomach and pull his hair over one shoulder, knotting and unknotting it between his fingers until the strands were left greasy from the oil on his hands. The trainer that oversaw him often threatened to slice it off whenever it fell into Tup’s face, but he wasn’t terribly convinced the man ever would. He often hoped that it would one day be long enough to twist on top of his head or to tie into plaits down his back.

Some nights, the boredom finally won and Tup’s eyes would grow heavy and he would sink into the thin pad that passed as a mattress. He was inevitably woken up a few hours later by the loudest alarm the Kaminoans could create and he would splash the exhaustion from his eyes and the day would start anew. Some nights didn’t go quite as smooth.

Lights out had been called a couple hours before Tup finally decided to give up on sleep entirely. It wasn’t always worth the struggle. He jammed his finger bitterly into the release button on his pod and waited for it to extend out completely before he sat up. He leaned over the edge, careful of the long drop below him, and hit the external release for Dogma’s pod.

“What do you what, Tup?” Dogma grumbled into his pillow, not willing to even lift his head.

“I’m bored,” Tup whispered in reply.

“Yeah? That’s probably because it’s the middle of the night. Go to sleep like the rest of us.”

Tup huffed and blew a wayward strand of hair out of his eyes when it fell forward. “You know I can’t sleep.”

“And I don’t really care.”

Reaching further over the gap that separated them, Tup dug his index finger roughly into the back of Dogma’s thigh until he yelped and sat up. “What the kriff?”

“Ooooh. Dogma said a bad word. Do you kiss your _buir_ with that mouth?”

“My _buir_ was a cloning chamber.” He rubbed a hand roughly across his face to wipe the sleep from his eyes. “You know some of us can sleep, right?”

Tup shrugged his shoulders and pulled himself from his pod, sure to close it after he was stable. He climbed all the way to the bottom of the bunk wall, jumping the last few feet to the ground, and looked up at Dogma still gazing down at him. “Well? Come on!” He whispered, waving his arm for his brother to follow him down.

Dogma stared down at him for a long moment before shaking his head and exiting his pod. Unlike Tup, he was sure to use each rung of the built in ladder until his feet were planted firmly on the ground. “You got me down here. What’s your plan now?”

“Hmm.” Tup teetered back and forth on his feet, his arms tucked behind his back. He bit at his lip as he thought and his mouth made a dramatic _pop_ when he opened it to speak again. “I could use a snack.”

“A snack?” Dogma asked reaching forward to grab Tup by his shoulders. “Are you out of your mind? We can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

“Why? You’re seriously asking why we can’t sneak out of our bunk room after lights out and walk right into the mess hall? We’ll get caught!” Dogma’s eyes were wide and his breathing ticked up in speed the longer he talked.

“Dogma. _Vod._ My favorite brother,” Tup grabbed at his upper arms and stared him down for a painfully long moment. “You’ve got a stick up your _shebs_.”

Dogma’s jaw dropped and he opened and closed his mouth a couple times before his jaw snapped shut with a _click._ “You know what? Fine. If you want a snack, then let’s go get one.”

A smile curled at Tup’s lips until the corners of his eyes crinkled and he let out an excited laugh. He grabbed Dogma’s hand and ushered them to the door of the bunk room. They pressed their ears to it to listen for any older brothers moving in the hall beyond, and slid it open when they were met with silence.

Kamino was eery at night. Normally, everything would glow an iridescent white that was nearly impossible to escape. It reflected off the the blank walls and the sleek transparisteel that opened up to the chambers and chambers full of troopers that had not yet been decanted. The glow was enhanced by the full-grown, white clad troopers that patrolled the halls going from duty to duty, and was only broken by the blues and reds of the cadet uniforms.

At night, everything was dim in a way that made the halls seem to go on for klicks. The overhead lights shut off during the night cycle and everything was illuminated by lights inset in the perimeter of the floor. Tup and Dogma’s shadows flashed strangely against the walls as they stepped lightly to keep their boots from echoing in the silence.

“Do you think they have cameras?” Dogma asked quietly as they made their way out of the barracks wing, sure to stop at every set of intersecting hallways to listen for movement in the darkness.

Tup snorted and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Of course they have cameras.”

“Tup!” Dogma exclaimed. “We’re going to get caught.”

“We’re clones, _di’kut,_ ” he replied, jabbing his elbow into his brother’s side. “They can’t tell who we are.”

Dogma knocked into him with his hip and Tup yelped as he caught himself against the transparisteel that over looked the cloning facilities. He stopped in his tracks to turn and look out over the thousands of tubes and the little near-human shapes inside of them.

“Tup?” Dogma called when he realized he was walking alone.

“Have you ever just looked at them before?” He asked softly.

Dogma backtracked to meet him and leaned forward too. “No, not really. They’ve always just kind of been there, you know?”

“Yeah.” The cloning facilities were almost always dark with very little light filtering in from overhead. The chambers themselves were illuminated from the inside so it was like a thousand little lights moving through the massive room. Tup shook his head a couple times to refocus. “Let’s go,” he said eventually.

They made it to the mess hall mostly uninhibited. They hid around corners a couple times as little cleaning droids whipped quickly down halls. Otherwise, they never ran into another soul the entire way there. They stuck to the edges of the room, following the curved walls to the very far end. They were far too trained to step blindly into the middle of the very open space.

The door to the kitchen itself was left unlocked and slid open silently with a press of a button on the wall next to it. Tup walked in first and Dogma ran into his back when he stopped abruptly.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dogma exclaimed.

“Shhhhh.” Tup gestured indeterminately in front of him and Dogma boosted himself up onto his toes to peer past Tup. Lining the entire back wall of the room was row after row of hibernating kitchen droids. “What do we do?”

“Kriff if I know!” Dogma hissed in his ear. They were far enough into the room that the door had slid shut behind him and they were all but frozen in place as they stared. “Do you think they respond to sound?”

“They don’t,” a voice called from a dark corner of the room. Tup and Dogma jumped back in shock, falling into each other and to a heap on the floor in their panic. 99 stepped out from the shadows and smiled affectionately down at them. “It takes a special command to wake them up. You boys really shouldn’t be out of bed, you know.”

“I-I… yes. We know, sir. We’re so sorry,” Dogma stuttered out, doing his best to right himself back on his feet. He reached down and tugged Tup up to stand beside him.

“99! We were just… We shouldn’t. We’re sorry,” Tup responded, hanging his head to watch the toe of his boot scuff at the ground.

99 made his way over and quirked an eyebrow at them. He stared first at Tup, then Dogma, then he turned his back on them and made his way to industrial cabinets inset in the walls. “We don’t have anything awfully interesting that the _Kaminii’se_ won’t miss,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at them as he talked. “But I have some of the good ration bars with the chocolate on top left over from last week. They’ll just go stale if no one eats them.” 99 turned away from the cabinets and held out 5 individually wrapped ration bars. When neither Tup nor Dogma made any move to take them, he walked back up and pressed them in their hands. “They’re not going to be missed, I promise. Enough for you both and the rest of your batch.”

“Thank you, 99,” Tup responded, tucking a couple into the pockets of his pants.

“You’re not going to tell anyone are you?” Dogma asked.

“I don’t usually make it my business to sell out my younger brothers for something as innocent as a snack,” he replied. He clapped a hand on each of their shoulders and gave them both a gentle nudge towards the door they came in through. “But that’s enough excitement for tonight I think. Let’s get you two back to bed.”

99 followed them all the way back to their bunk room, chattering kindly the whole way there. He took none of the precautions Tup and Dogma themselves had, walking confidently through the halls as if he owned the place. Maybe he did in a way. After all, the cadets brought the very color to the walls of Kamino, and 99 was the breath behind them.

Tup opened the door to the bunk room and led Dogma in and across to the ladder that would lead to their cramped, little pods. They were both sure to promise they would share the rations with their brothers in the morning. 99 shut the door behind them once they had retreated back into their slots in the wall, and he hummed contentedly at the cool durasteel as it closed.

“99?” A tired voice called from down the hall.

He turned to face the cadet standing in the doorway of a bunk room a few doors down. “Yes, Echo?”

The cadet, not much older than eight himself, huffed at the name and it brought a fond smile to 99’s face. “I heard you talking to someone and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

99 slowly made his way to the door and placed a kind hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Just putting a couple of the young ones down for the night. You know how they can be.”

Echo smiled sleepily and leaned into the touch. “Yeah, I remember.”

**Author's Note:**

> Mando'a Translations:
> 
> Baatir- Care  
> buir- mother, father  
> vod- brother, comrade, “mate”  
> shebs- backside, rear, buttocks  
> di’kut- idiot  
> Kaminii’se- Kaminoans


End file.
